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Who
Stepped In It
Finger Pointing Is Not Good Public Relations: There are a lot of bad business decisions that never make it into the mass media. But what if one of those decisions becomes "the news"?
It's been almost three weeks since The Virginian-Pilot reported that a well-known Hampton Roads heating and cooling company has 25 law suits filed against it, accusing it of false advertising and breach of contract.
That's a bad day.
But that bad day gets even worse when no action is taken to address the negative issues being raised in this news report. It’s tough to measure how much negative opinion was created among potential clients and clients who were exposed to it. Some customers may have even sought a reason to doubt the report, but no response is like admitting guilt. Such stories and the lack of an appropriate response have sunk businesses.
The company's attorney did not help things with an ill-fated attempt to distract people by telling the reporter that customers should focus on another, now-bankrupt company that ran the scheme.
If you are trying to earn credibility and demonstrate concern for your customers, this approach won't fly in our jaded, savvy and sophisticated society. It is reasonable for customers to say: "I bought my system from you; you promised me a sweet rebate; now where's my money? Don't point me to some entity that you partnered with and say I'm clean, they did it." What this company did reminds me of third graders finger pointing when they get caught.
You might think the owner of Russell's Heating & Cooling, or the company's public relations consultant or lawyer, has been in contact with the newspaper to try and generate a story that reports on policy or procedure changes in hopes of righting the ship. All indications say they're going to sit this one out and try to weather the storm. So far, no damage control has
appeared -- and the clock keeps ticking.
Handling a public relations crisis
When you become the news in a negative way, quickly and clearly shore up your relationships with your publics -- customers, potential customers, subcontractors, shareholders, stockholders, regulatory boards, and more. Here are some public relations tactics to re-establish your image:
- Take responsibility. If you partnered with a vendor that mistreated your clients, you need to step up and fix the problem, no matter the cost. Word of mouth and the Internet will spread this bad news story farther and faster then ever before. The buck stops with you.
- Make sure your public relations agency is working hand-in-hand with your lawyer, before your lawyer talks to the media, or better yet, put someone from the company leadership team in front of the media. Many times public relations consultants and lawyers have opposing views on handling media interviews and the approach to media. You'll have to decide which approach to take. A good starting point is: who's better at crafting an effective message?
- Craft a statement and send it to your target audiences. Whether that list is 200 or 20,000, repairing your image sooner than later will help ensure potential and current customers stay with you and do not call #2 on their list. Waiting may be too much for your company to bear.
- Move forward. There is no sense in exposing your audience to negative information they may not have read. Talk about solutions and stay positive; you need to instill confidence.
- Post the statement on your Web site for a limited amount of time and follow up with a short article which describes your approach to the way ahead.
- Your statement should also appear in ads in the publication where your audience was exposed to the story. This means keeping a reserve of money for damage control ads.
We all make mistakes. But when one of them becomes big news, you need to take visible action quickly. Are you prepared to handle a 25", top-of-the-page, Saturday edition negative story?
About Rourk Public Relations
The Rourk Public Relations agency is expert at media relations, branding, marketing, government relations, political consulting, SEO, web marketing, and web design. It contributes effective PR and Marketing work to a wide range of clients in Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Chesapeake, Portsmouth, Suffolk, Hampton, Newport News, Hampton Roads, and throughout Virginia.
For a no-cost phone consultation, feel free to call David Rourk at (757) 478-0150. |
